Thank you

Holy cow! Eleven days since the last post! Sorry.

There's just been a lot of stuff going on: bishops, popes, sore tooth and my little brain going "worryworryworry" all day long. The Asteroid 2.0 continues on course. Running madly around Rome talking to people. Editorial staff arrived from the New World. Miserable weather, with the humidity shooting up and giving the zanzare more encouragement...

"Worryworryworry..."

First, I wanted to thank very sincerely the kind readers who donated so generously to my bleg for help with funding the move up to the mountains and tooth-repair. The money donated will make a huge difference.

The tooth has settled down with the application of antibiotics, but as soon as the move is done it's going to have to get a visit. I think it will be safe to push the root canal back another couple of months. No pain and the abscess is down (tbgt) but this time I'm finally convinced. It's going to have to happen sooner rather than later.

I looked it all up on teh internets, and found out that just trying to ignore a tooth with a chronic root infection can lead not only to the loss of the tooth, but "bone loss" in the surrounding err...bones. Yeah, that's my skull we're talking about "losing". So, OK. My fear of dentists and lack of moolah has just lost out to fear of my skull disintegrating. (No, it doesn't happen over night, and antibiotics can stave it off for a while... but still! Yi!)

The moving plan proceeds apace, though thus far, a bit slower than I'd hoped to get packing because of ... some stuff... going on in Rome, err... anyway...

Winnie still doesn't suspect a thing. (She's pretty dim, but always gets suspicious when the boxes start appearing.) But it really is truly astounding how much worthless crap we tend to accumulate in this life, even if we're not the sort of person who's into recreational shopping.

This weekend is set aside for shoving a lot of stuff into the huge double-strength garbage bags I bought. A friend has promised to come over and help me ditch a load of it and strengthen my resolve. We will be honouring the ancient tradition of getting rid of the really big stuff, an old mattress, by sneaking it out of the house at three am, propping it up against the local dumpster and running away.

But of course, at this stage in my life, no matter how much stuff I leave to the elements, it's going to be too much to deal with myself, so I'm looking at traslochi companies. It's the furniture. All this time, I've mostly had stuff that would go in boxes, but I guess part of being a grown-up is having stuff you need movers for. With any luck, this will be the last move for a long time.

In total, the amount kindly given will take a bunch of pressure off closing out the utilities accounts. Between my regular paycheque and other writing work, it's going to cover the gas and probably the electric.

I'm still looking at the moving company (€1150) and the actual cost of the flat (€1500) to go, so would still be very grateful for any help.

I managed to get a pic of the house from the internet.

It's up on the hill from the town walls, about a ten minute walk. The flat is the whole middle floor (that the Italians call the first but Anglos call the second.) There's a covered car port on the other side and the garden on this side goes up a sharp incline and is mostly shaded by that big oak tree. Above the oak there's a little flat space with one of those nice Italian brick barbeque things, and a little wooden table and chairs where you can have your tea in the mornings.

Th garden is much bigger than it looks in this pic, with the laurel hedge in the front hiding a strip of flat about ten feet wide running along the length of the property. Perfect place for climbing flowers and herbs.

I'm hoping little Winnie will learn to like going outside a bit. We had a flat in S. Mar for a while that had a garden and she got used to poking about and sitting in the sunshine in the flower beds, and even caught a bird once! I was so proud! But one of the neighbourhood bully feral cats started coming round and beating her up, so she gave it up. Having been the target of neighbourhood bullies, I was sympathetic. But it can't be good for cats to spend all their time indoors, and I have felt guilty about it ever since we moved in here. In the new place, the front door opens straight onto the garden, so I can start letting her try Outdoors again. Inside at night, though, because ... wolves. (Yes, actual wolves).


The road goes zooming straight down the hill to the Porta Romana, the gate that the sign says leads to Rome. I walked up the hill from the gate to the house in exactly 11 minutes. The monastery and basilica of San. Benedetto is another five minutes walk.


~
On another, completely unrelated note,

while the swimming season comes to a close, there are others who continue the exploration of the real final frontier.




I've been watching the videos of the Nautilus deep sea exploration expedition.

Ever heard of a siphonophore? Me neither until a short while ago.

Cool, huh?



~